My Random Writer

Living Here

I know our town is small, and some who live here don't really want to be here. But they don't see the beauty like we do. Friday morning winter runs, running with the people you love through the early morning darkness, with light coming from street lights and the lights wrapped around the leafless trees, the sound of happy voices surrounding you. Or the beauty of running alone through the snow, hardly daring to look up because the flakes are repeatedly hitting you in the face, instead watching out of the corner of your eye as the snowflakes gently fall to the ground, lit by the street lights you pass. Then gathering with your family afterwards to laugh at the snow that is sticking to hair, eyebrows, sweatshirts and tights. Maybe it's later in the day, after skiing for a few hours and driving down the mountain to be greeted by the friendliness of North Idaho Christmas colors. The deep green of the trees combined with the organic red of fallen needles, then surrounded by glistening snow. Or perhaps it is on a stay-at-home day, when shoveling the snow that has fallen overnight. To look around and see almost a foot of snow caked on top of the tree branches. What seemed dead during fall is merely asleep during winter, hidden under a blanket of white fluff. You sigh and return to work after watching your breath turn to fog in the crisp winter air. I also see beauty in the cloudy winter sunsets. It's so early in the day, and the clouds preserve the color for a time. The summer reds, oranges, and yellows are gone, replaced with more subtle pinks and purples that stretch across the entire expanse of the sky. But there's more. I see it in the laughing, crackling fire after a long day of skiing. And in laughing trying to get firewood, post holing through the snow, attempting to pull a sled filled with wood. There is joy and beauty in work and play. One just has to look.